A general vacuum cleaner draws in dirt-filled air from a cleaning surface through a brush. Such a vacuum cleaner employs a dust separating apparatus to separate dirt from the air drawn in from the cleaning surface and to collect the dirt therein.
The dust separating apparatus for the vacuum cleaner often uses a cyclone such that it whirls drawn-in air in a cyclone and separates dirt from the air due to a difference in centrifugal forces of the air and the dirt. This cyclone type dust separating apparatus does not require an extra dust bag to collect dirt separated from the drawn-in air, but instead requires a dust collecting receptacle to collect dirt therein.
The dust separating apparatus for the vacuum cleaner described above has a cyclone unit to generate a cyclone and the cyclone unit is located substantially in a center of the dust collecting receptacle where dirt is collected.
In this case, however, the dust collecting receptacle requires an additional capacity that compensates for the area occupied by the cyclone unit. This increase in the capacity of the dust collecting receptacle results in a big-sized dust separating apparatus.
Also, the dust separating apparatus of the prior art has a problem that some of dirt whirled by the cyclone and floating in the dust collecting receptacle does not drop down and piles up on an upper surface of an inflow channel through which the drawn-in air flows into the cyclone unit. Consequently, the dirt separated from the drawn-in air is not collected on the dust collecting receptacle and thus the dust collecting efficiency deteriorates.